Coco opened the door, stumbling for a moment as Shadow tore into the room past her and tackled Lamar who had been waiting patiently behind his mother for the girl. They laughed for a long moment, rolling around on the floor before Lamar leapt to his feet and took Shadow's hand, the little girl blushed slightly as he dragged her into the next room and she was barely able to keep up with him. Coco smiled as she watched them disappear and greeted Yang and Blake, welcoming them into the living room as she sat down on a chair and motioned for them to sit on the sofa. Coco leaned forward, slowly stirring her mug of coffee before blowing on it to cool it off and taking a small sip.
"Blake, Yang! Come sit down! I'm glad the two of you had some time off today to get away for a while," Coco exclaimed. "Velv and I are normally pretty busy ourselves, but it's nice when things work out. Yatsuhashi wanted to stop in last night, but we had to work late, so that ended up falling through." Coco smiled as they sat down and she sat back in her chair, taking another sip of her coffee, swallowing hard as a thought crossed her mind. "Mmm… Bun! Blake and Yang are here! Come join us!"
"Just a second!" Velvet called out from the other room. Coco smiled and directed her attention to Blake.
"I want you to know that I have the perfect dress picked out for Shadow when she and Lamar get married," Coco told them as she pulled out her scroll and browsed through her photos until she found the image. She handed it to Yang who smiled in excitement, looking it over and handing it to Blake.
"Oh my gods, it's beautiful!" Yang exclaimed as Blake took it in for a moment. "Isn't that gorgeous Blake?"
"It is, but isn't it a little early to be planning their wedding? They're just kids. Hell, we don't even know if they'll be together when they get to the academy or not. They might have different interests by then," Blake stated as she handed it back to Coco who put it down on the coffee table.
"It is never too early to plan fashion," Coco told them as Velvet finally joined them, exiting the hallway and moving to Coco's chair, sitting on her lap. "Hey Bun."
"I was just finishing up the laundry," she said kissing Coco. "What did I miss?"
"I was showing them the wedding dress that I think Shadow should wear when she gets married," Coco told her wife.
"Spectacular, right?" Velvet asked them. Yang nodded as Blake simply stared ahead and she pulled Blake in.
"How about that match this morning?" Coco asked, trying to subtly change the subject. Yang moved to the edge of her seat.
"That was impressive. Both teams are pushing themselves and each other to the brink every day. I don't think that two teams have ever worked so hard to achieve greatness, even if they don't completely realize that they're doing it. It's a shame that they had to call the game early. Was Bái okay? The last thing Neela texted me was that they had found Bái and Ilia both passed out in the rec room, but Neela never sent me another message after that," Yang told Coco. Coco took a swig of her drink and handed it to Velvet to set on the table beside her scroll.
"She's fine. They carried her back to the nurse's office and Ren checked her over. Ilia had knocked her out because she said that Bái had lost control of her power and they were going to freeze to death. Her story lines up, both Titus and Neela confirmed that the entire room was covered in a thick layer of ice when they entered to retrieve the flag. There's something else going on with that girl, but she refuses to talk to any of us about it, and Lykos told us that she isn't ready to open up to him yet. I just hope that it isn't anything too serious. Though Ren said that Ilia heard someone say the name Merlot when she was in Bái's psyche. Does that mean anything to you?" Coco asked. Blake and Yang exchanged a look before Blake spoke.
"During our year as students at Beacon, Oz had sent us out on a mission against a man by the name of Merlot. He was experimenting on Grimm, he seemed obsessed with them, hell-bent on turning those monsters into weapons that he could control," Blake explained. "That doesn't make any sense though, he only ever dealt with Grimm, and he wouldn't have done anything to that girl."
"What if she's being possessed by a Grimm?" Velvet asked. They all turned their attention to her. She shrugged. "The Giant Armor and the Geist are both possession Grimm, plus there are probably others that we don't know about. Do you think that a possession Grimm could be inside of Bái?" They all exchanged confused and nervous glances.
"Both of those Grimm only possess inanimate objects Velv," Coco said.
"Same as the ones that we fought on Merlot's island," Yang added.
"I can't imagine a Grimm being capable of such a thing," Blake finished.
"But what if it could?" Velvet stated. "Think about all of the Grimm that we know about. The Feilong. The desert Grimm on Menagerie. The Dragon that RWBY took down in Vale and the Nuckelavee that RNJR fought out in Mistral. There are probably even more powerful Grimm, I wouldn't doubt the fact that maybe Salem was part Grimm herself." They all sat in silence for a long moment before Yang cleared her throat.
"We can think about that later," Yang told them.
"Right," Blake agreed.
"So anything new on the Neeliana front?" Coco asked. Blake shook her head.
"Nothing new from Eliana, though it does seem like Neela has toned it down a bit. I don't know if it's so she can focus on her studies, or because she found out that Eliana just isn't interested in her that way," Blake replied. She bit her lip. "I really hope that Elli feels the same." Blake looked up at Coco. "Neela will never admit it out loud to anyone, but Elli is the one thing that she desires even more than becoming a huntress. If she loses Elli for any reason, it'd be the hardest thing that Neela would have to endure since her parents were killed. I understand why she wants to wait to tell Elli, she's nervous, but if she waits too long she's bound to lose her."
"Just like I would have lost you to Sun?" Yang asked. Blake chuckled.
"Sun's a good friend, but that would never have happened," she replied causing Yang to smile.
"I'd give her advice on the subject, but I was the same way with Velv," Coco told them. "But for different reasons. Neela's afraid of losing Elli, where I was mostly concerned with that fact that I wouldn't make Velvet happy if she said yes." Velvet looked back at Coco and smiled. Coco beamed back at her softly. "It seems silly now, but I know exactly what Neela is going through."
"What's also different with the four of us is the fact that we all showed some sort of mutual interest back. You said that Elli seems only to see Neela as a friend or a sister," Velvet said. Yang nodded.
"They grew up together, they were inseparable after they met," Yang said as she laughed, recalling the girls playing together. "I remember when they used to go out in the yard and pretend that they were huntresses, and they'd chase after Zwei when Tai brought him over, pretending that he was a beowolf that they needed to slay. Needless to say, Zwei didn't care for it much, but the smiles on their faces and the way their eyes lit up as they saved each other from such a terrifying Grimm…" Her eyes watered. "This must be how dad felt watching us grow up. It happens too quickly and before you know it, they're on their own." Something crashed in the next room.
"Sorry!" Lamar called out and they all broke out into laughter as Velvet stood to check on the noise.
"And at other times they can't grow up fast enough," Coco said. "I wouldn't trade this time for all of the lien in Remnant." She stood up, moving to the kitchen to get another cup of coffee and she called out through the house. "So, you two said that you were coming over with the intent of bringing me up to speed on the situation with Orion. That was his name, right?"
"Yes! He escaped with some help from other members of Merc's gang yesterday!" Yang yelled back. "He tried to crush Pyrrha and me, but we were able to hold up the debris long enough for Yatsu to dig us out with Neptune and Sun's help. I only really got a good look at one of them aside from Starboy, and he looked like maybe he was a canine Faunus or something like that. He ran on all fours at times and fought with a bone weapon. You got anything on him?" Coco reentered the room and nodded as she was mid-sip, gently setting the mug down once again.
"Sounds a lot like Sirius and yes, he's also a member of Mercury's gang, probably the second most prominent. We haven't run into him often, but he seems like one of the more powerful criminals in Vale. It's rumored that his weapon is actually made up of the spine of a Grimm that he captured and then ripped it out of," Coco informed them. Blake raised an eyebrow.
"Is that even possible?" She asked. Coco shrugged.
"Beats me, but it makes for one hell of a story," she replied. "It would seem that Merc has a small sect operating inside of his own group that has taken on the name of The Stardust Gang. Not the best name ever. Sounds like a bad pun that Yang would have come up with, to be honest."
"My puns are better than that," she declared.
"Did we get anything out of him before he managed to get away?" Coco asked. "I know that you can't tell me any more about the relics other than they exist, but did he know where they were? Did he indicate that Mercury might know or mention who he was working for?" Yang shook her head.
"He resisted most of our methods, we even let Nora get a few licks in with her hammer and he still refused to talk," Yang explained. Coco picked up her scroll and flipped through a few of the screens. "We would have been better off just keeping him at the police station again and risking another escape. The council is a little upset over the fact that he took down an entire mountain base. Ruby has been busy trying to defuse the situation for the last twenty-four hours. Guess we should have thought this whole thing out a little more instead of rushing it like we did."
"It's not the worst thing that could have happened to be honest. I was fully anticipating that he would somehow escape again, so I planted a tracker on his shield that he will never be able to find unless he removed the strap for some reason. Now its battery will die after a week or so, so I've put some of the best analysts that we could dig up with some help from Weiss and her sister, we should be able to pinpoint a location for Orion at least. Where he frequents, any patterns he may follow, that sort of thing. I have a sting operation planned because we have word from Neo that in a few days from now Stardust is going to attack the port and steal a large shipment of Dust. I know, sounds familiar," Coco told them. Blake nodded.
"There's no White Fang involved this time though," she told Coco.
"You're right. This operation is being carried out only by Stardust, we don't even have confirmation that they are working with Mercury to make this happen. However, they are one of the few traceable ties that we have right now, so I've come up with a plan to try and stop them. They can't stay silent if we catch all of them," Coco said. She took a drink and looked at Blake with a crooked smile. "This brings me to my next point of interest."
"Oh?" Blake asked. "And what would that be?"
"I have a little extra credit in mind for Team NITE," Coco told her as Velvet returned.
"No," Blake said slowly as it settled in. She stood along with Coco across from her. "No."
"They'll be fine. Team RWBY was taking on the White Fang, Roman Torchwick, and Neo their first year," Coco reminded her.
"That's different! Roman was a nobody when it came to fighting! We were able to catch him with little to no issue! If we haven't been able to stop Orion from escaping after catching him multiple times, what makes you think that NITE will be able to do any better?!" Blake vented. Coco removed her glasses.
"You don't really think that I would send them in there if they weren't ready for it, do you?!" Coco shouted back.
"We are talking about a full blown team of huntsmen like fighters! I refuse to let Neela participate!" Blake snapped.
"It isn't up to you!" Coco replied.
"Glynda will never agree to this!" Blake informed her. "I'll make sure of it!"
"Didn't you two do enough of this in the last story?" Yang asked. Neither of them seemed to have heard her.
"You have to trust your daughter!" Coco yelled. Blake's eyes grew wide and she stopped. They stared at each other for a long moment in the sudden silence that had occurred and the kids came running in from Lamar's room. "Do you trust Neela with your life? Haven't you been training her since she was a little girl for this very moment?" Blake held back tears as Shadow ran to her and threw her arms around Blake's legs.
"Don't cry, mommy. Sissy is the strongest ever!" Shadow reassured her mom, trying to comfort her. Blake nodded and sniffed as she picked Shadow up, smiling at the girl.
"You're right Shadow. Sissy is very strong," Blake said. Coco walked over to Lamar and rubbed the top of his head before Blake set Shadow back down and the children ran off once again.
"Blake," Coco said sternly as she turned back to look at her. "I'm not throwing these kids out there as bait. I have no intention of having them do this on their own like you had to. It will be guided."
"They're strong," Velvet added. Coco nodded as did Yang.
"If things get out of hand, I'll have a team in there faster than that freak can teleport away with that light of his," Coco explained. "Trust me. Trust Neela." Blake swallowed and nodded.
She's ready. I trust her. I'm still so scared for her. Yang wrapped her arms around Blake. Blake's mind flashed back to when Yang came back for her after she had run away. Yang was terrified that Blake had tried to take Adam on, but Yang also accepted the fact that she knew Blake possessed the strength to take him down. She took a deep breath. She can do this.
Neela. You can do this.
Titus sat on his bed as he had just finished showering and changed into a pair of grey sweatpants and a white tank top that fit tightly to his built frame. He dried his hair off, wondering what he should do with his half an hour of free time that he had been given. Neela and Eliana were at the Xiao Long's for dinner and Ilia still hadn't returned yet from the infirmary. He remembered that Ilia had given him her scroll earlier and moved to her desk to see if she had received any messages while she had been out.
He unlocked it, curious to see if she had any notifications and noted that she had one message from someone she had named "JA" in her contacts. He wanted to press further, thinking that perhaps this was the boy she was texting all the time and seemed bashful about. However, Titus felt this might be an invasion of privacy and put the scroll down thinking better of it. He turned away from her desk and took a step towards him before he stopped in his tracks. She would never have to know… He could just mark it as unread and she would never find out that he read the message.
But what if somehow she did find out? He would never hear the end of it, or perhaps she would do something to him, he could only imagine the wrath that would be brought on by such an invasion of privacy. After weighing up the consequences he determined that the risk was worth the reward and picked the scroll up off of the desk just as the door to the room swung open and the frame was filled with Ilia who greeted him with a smirk.
"How's it going, big guy?" She asked as she entered in and closed the door behind her, walking past him and into the bathroom where he could hear her running the water in the sink. He looked at her scroll in his hand and set it back down on her desk, glancing back at the bathroom door to see if she had noticed before he moved quickly back to his bunk and opened one of his textbooks, acting as if he was studying. He read the page he was on for a moment before he was struck by a sudden bout of fear. Had he opened the message in a panic and been unable to mark it as unread? She'd know for sure if she hadn't noticed before! He had no choice but to grab the device once more and hope that she stayed in the bathroom for a moment.
He leapt quickly to his feet, grabbing it up in one swift movement as Ilia stepped into the room with her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. She glanced at the scroll in his hand and moved back to the bathroom, leaving him there in momentary shock. She had seen, there was no getting around it, but maybe he could apologize and that would be enough to get him off the hook. She sprinted back through the room, slamming her fist into his nose, forcing him to stumble back in pain, grabbing at his injury as she took the scroll from him.
"What the hell?!" She yelled at him as he was still trying to process what had happened.
"It's not what it looked like!" He replied as he sat in the chair beside him rubbing his nose and noting the blood that was trickling over his mouth. She put the scroll in her pocket and cocked her hip, rolling her eyes.
"What was it then?" She asked.
"I was just…" He began.
"Going through my messages?" She asked. He looked up at her and sighed. "They didn't teach you much about privacy at Atlas, did they?"
"I just wanted to make sure that this guy was right for you," He told her. She gave him a crooked look from across the room, confused by what he had said.
"What?" She asked.
"Whoever you keep texting all the time! 'JA', right? I just wanted to make sure that he was treating you properly," he told her. Ilia's face softened slightly and she began to chuckle, It evolved into a full-blown laugh and she took a seat on her bed as she doubled over, stopping for a moment to glance up at his confused face. It started all over and he found himself filled with confusion. "What's so funny?"
"I'm not interested in anyone! I've been messaging Mr. Arc all the time, he's been counseling me and giving me advice since the first day of school!" She blurted out as she continued her unbridled cackling. "A little on the jealous side Titus?" Titus smirked as he rubbed his nose gingerly. He shook his head.
"It's not like that," he explained. "I think of you, Neela, and Eliana as family. The three of you remind me of my three younger sisters. I'm not sure that I could ever think of you that way after getting to know you and having you on my team." She looked at him, noting that his eyes were soft for the first time since she had met him. He meant every word that he had just said and while Ilia was comforted by them, she found it a tad painful. To say that she wasn't at least slightly attracted to him would have been a bold-faced lie. She smiled moving over to him and checking his nose.
"Are you okay?" She asked.
"It hurts more than I thought it would," He told her, seething as she touched it. He pushed her hand away. "Could you hit me harder next time?" She clicked her tongue.
"Oh I can always make it harder," she told him. "Is that a challenge, because I can definitely make it hurt worse next time." He grinned.
"Is that so?" He asked coyly. She folded her arms as she stepped away from him.
"Don't believe me?" She asked.
"Oh I believe you," he told her as he moved to the bathroom. "I would just prefer you didn't break it, that's all."
Cobalt stood at the top of the steps at the end of the hall, Tawney standing beside him as he took a last second to contemplate his decision. He would push himself to knock on the door, asking Ilia if she would be interested in going on a date with him in Vale, maybe they could catch a movie or have dinner. He rubbed his hands together nervously. He coughed and looked back down the stairs as Tawney gripped his shoulder.
"You can do this," Tawney told him trying to reassure him. "March down to their room and tell her how you feel. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Well, in this one anime I watched, this maid with blue hair professed her love for the main character and he…" He cringed and writhed in pain as she yanked on his shoulder and dug her nails in.
"Don't bring up anime, this isn't an anime. This is real life," she told him. "I'll walk you to the door." He nodded at her in thanks and they proceeded down the hallway to the room, Cobalt's fist inches from the door, ready to rap his knuckle against it before he heard Ilia and Titus talking to each other.
"Are you okay?" Ilia asked.
"It hurts more than I thought it would," Titus replied. Tawney moved closer to the door to try and listen in.
"What's going on in there?" Tawney whispered. Cobalt hushed her and listened in again.
"Oh I can always make it harder," she told him. "Is that a challenge, because I can definitely make it hurt worse next time." The two of them exchanged glances and Cobalt's face became bright red as they leapt back from the door and briskly headed down the hall, passing Neela and Eliana.
"Hey guys, what's up," Eliana asked.
"Nothing!" Cobalt blurted, clearly hiding something. Tawney was now taken with Eliana, looking her over from head to toe before glancing back at Cobalt. He was really going to do it, he was going to tell Ilia how he felt. Why couldn't Tawney do that with Eliana?
"Right," Neela agreed in disbelief. "You guys have any plans for tomorrow?" Cobalt shook his head and glanced over at Tawney who also shook her head.
"Not much really, might be training in one of the arenas so that we can make up for that short match we had today," Tawney told them. "What about you two?" Neela gave her a side glance so that she didn't seem overly curious, knowing that Tawney was also interested in Eliana to a degree.
"Probably going to have dinner with my parents again," Neela explained. All four of them stood there for a couple of seconds in an awkward moment of silence until Cobalt faked needing to stretch and glanced down the hallway, hoping that Tawney understood that he wanted to leave.
"Well, this was a great chat, but Cobalt and I are going to get heading to the cafeteria and see if there's anything left from dinner earlier before they throw it out. Cobalt's not hungry, but I'm dragging him with me for the hell of it." Tawney explained as she latched onto his arm and dragged him away.
What does Coco have in mind for Team NITE and catching Stardust? Next Week - Chapter 24 - Ebony!
A big thank you to Sa-Dui, Diyaru4500, Demize00Zero, TheCipherNine, SketchHungry, Ookaminoki, Lightning-in-my-Hand, and Dishwasher1910. All of their artwork can be found at Deviantart, you can search Silent-Celica and under my favorites tab, I have a collection for NITE.
Until next week, stay classy!